I'll Take Manhattan...

You perhaps have heard about the Greenland ice melting faster than expected, but not to worry there's always Antarctica.

Today from the Washington Post: The Antarctic ice sheet is losing as much as 36 cubic miles of ice a year in a trend that scientists link to global warming, according to a new paper that provides the first evidence that the sheet's total mass is shrinking significantly. The new findings, which are being published today in the journal Science, suggest that global sea level could rise substantially over the next several centuries.

Richard Alley, a Pennsylvania State University glaciologist who has studied the Antarctic ice sheet but was not involved in the new research... called the study significant and "a bit surprising" because a major international scientific panel predicted five years ago that the Antarctic ice sheet would gain mass this century as higher temperatures led to increased snowfall.

"It looks like the ice sheets are ahead of schedule" in terms of melting, Alley said. "That's a wake-up call. We better figure out what's going on."